action, and that of an insignificant description, when the whole Taeping force before Kongyin broke into a rout. The Imperialist plan for retarding their retreat succeeded to admiration, and of more than 10,000 men not a tenth escaped from the sword of their pursuers. In a letter written at this time to his mother, Gordon, who, at the end of February had been raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the army for distinguished conduct in the field, gave a graphic account of the condition of the region in which he was operating:-- "The rebels are very much pressed, and three months should finish them. During the pursuit from Kongyin the Imperialists and villagers killed in one village 3000. I will say this much--the Imperialists did not kill the coolies and boys. The villagers followed up and stripped the fugitives stark naked, so that all over the country there were naked men lying down in the grass. The cruelties these rebels had committed during their raid were frightful; in every village there were from ten to sixty dead, either women--frightfully mutilated--old men, or small children. I do not regret the fate of these rebels. I have no talent for description, but the scenes I have witnessed of misery are something dreadful, and I must say that your wish for me to return with the work incomplete would not be expressed if you saw the state of these poor people. The horrible furtive looks of the wretched inhabitants hovering around one's boat haunts me, and the knowledge of their want of nourishment would sicken anyone. They are like wolves. The dead lie where they fall, and are in some cases trodden quite flat by the passers-by. I hope to get the Shanghai people to assist, but they do not _see_ these things, and to _read_ that there are human beings eating human flesh produces less effect than if they saw the corpses from which that flesh is cut. There is one thing I promise you, and that is, that as soon as I can leave this service, I will do so; but I will not be led to do what may cause great disasters for the sake of getting out of the dangers, which, in my opinion, are no greater in action than in barracks. My leg is all right; the eleventh day after I received the wound I was up, and by the fifteenth day I could walk well. The ball went through the thick part of the leg, just below the knee."